Budget | Further cuts to gov’t spending in 2022

The Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng has announced that the SAR government will continue to retrench public spending next year, given the uncertainty of the city’s economic situation.
According to the top official, the budgets for several departments in 2022 will not exceed the budgets this year.
Last year, Ho made a 2021 budget cut because of the impact of Covid-19.
The Chief Executive has issued a directive that if some departments fail to meet the requirement, they should nevertheless cut 10% of the recurrent expenditure in 2020 from their budgets in 2022, as cited in a TDM Radio report.
The decree states that amid changes in the economic environment, all public government departments and organizations must make a prudent evaluation of all types of budget expenditure for next year.
For departments and organizations applying cash accounting policies, the total common expenses of the central budget should not exceed 90% of the 2020 figure.
In accordance with the provisions of Macau law, non-autonomous departments, departments with administrative autonomy, and autonomous departments are subject to the 10% mandatory reduction.
Non-autonomous departments are departments without revenue, and all expenditures are paid by the SAR government’s common income. They include the office of Chief Executive and the offices of the secretaries, totaling over 45 departments.
In April, the Legislative Assembly (AL) approved the addition of some MOP9.11 billion from the fiscal reserves for the economic support plan as well as MOP483 million for the budget of the Macao Foundation.
Initially, the AL approved the 2021 budget, which will allocate MOP26.6 billion from the financial reserve to redress the deficit for public administration.